China: the land of dumplings and dim sum. I’m going to be frank here and say that I’ve never actually eaten Chinese food out. And yes I do live in Melbourne where there is a huge Chinese community. I’m going to be even more honest and say that I’ve never actually even tried to. I’ve watched people eat it, but never dabbled in it. Up until recently, Asian food was simply a no-go zone for me because nuts seem to be too prevalent. Whether that was logical or not, it was the case. Only recently have I begun to dabble in Japanese food, and that being said: I’m still only just dipping those chopsticks into the udon noodle soup.

Because really, Asian food kind of just scared me. It was all so foreign. If you look at other cuisines, they tend not to feel so different. Let’s look at Mexican for example. It is full of foreign words like ‘enchilada’ or ‘frijoles’. I (the expert!) have had to help many friends navigate through a Mexican menu which to them is gibberish, but to me (somehow over the years) has become second nature. But, when you break it down, it’s just e.g. a chicken wrap in some form or another. And beans. And tomato. All familiar items. Similarly, Spanish paella is really just rice, like risotto, with vegetables or meat. Again, things we are all well-accustomed to.

Asian food, particularly Chinese food, is much more intriguing and different. I still don’t quite know what dim sum is. I know what a dumpling looks like, but I really have no concept of what it would taste like (and I certainly don’t understand Melbournians obsession with dumplings!).

So. I was hoping (it was a long shot) that I would be able to try some Chinese food when in Hong Kong.

Negative.

My brother’s highlight of our family holidays is always the food – as the only one without dietary requirements, he was excited to try Chinese food. This meant that every time he was ordering Chinese food, I would look at the menu to see if I could eat anything. But there were a few challenges.

Problem number 1: there seemed to be two extremes – cheap Chinese food and expensive Chinese food. There wasn’t much by way of a middle ground. The result – I didn’t really want to experiment with a new cuisine at a street vendor or similar, but I also didn’t want to pay exorbitant amounts when I had no idea what I was getting.

Problem number 2: seafood and pork. Neither of which I am able to eat. These were present in a large majority of the food in Hong Kong. I don’t know whether this would also be the case in the rest of China, but walking through the streets of Hong Kong, all we could smell was seafood. For those allergic to fish/seafood, do not be too concerned. My father, anaphylactic to, well, we aren’t quite sure what but something of the fish/seafood variety. Do not worry, you can definitely still find plenty of food options when travelling to Hong Kong. As mentioned here, there is lots of Western food around so as long as you can stand the smell of seafood, you’ll be able to manage. One thing to note for the really severe: in Hong Kong, there is a popular snack food eaten by those of all ages – Korean squid. It is (I think) dried and sliced into tiny strips, which people eat with their hands. They were all over Ocean Park, there were a few stalls selling it along the Avenue of the Stars, as well as a few around and about Hong Kong. The point is that it is eaten with the hands, and so if you are highly allergic (e.g. via touch or surroundings), be very careful in these areas. And don’t worry – you will smell it a mile away. After smelling it the first few times, my fam and I began to feel sick every time we smelt the intense unfamiliar Korean Squid. It is also (I think) available to be purchased pre-packaged.

Problem number 3: peanuts. I didn’t expect peanuts to be particularly prevalent in Chinese cooking (based on my very basic understanding of Chinese food in Australia), however, this was pretty incorrect. They use a lot of peanut oil and peanuts (whether sauce or otherwise) in their cooking. I discovered this when the fam and I visited One Dim Sum. This is a Michelin-star dim sum restaurant in Mong Kok. I read about it online, as it is one of the cheapest Michelin restaurants in the world. There was a long queue, but before jumping in line, we decided we should first check out whether I would be able to eat there at all. Luckily, a very nice young Chinese couple overhead us talking and offered to help. They had gone to an international school so they spoke brilliant English. They communicated with the staff member explaining my situation and the helpful staff member highlighted all the things that I could eat. It was about 50/50. The young couple passed on to me that the restaurant used peanut oil for all of their frying, which meant that anything deep fried (aka a large majority of the menu) contained peanuts. There were also some dishes which contained actual peanuts or peanut sauce. After the helpful couple and staff member had dedicated a good 10 minutes helping me, I decided it was much too risky, even though it was predominantly peanut oil (which is generally not what peanut Allergians are allergic to).

Problem number 4: Menus. The Chinese restaurants I looked at did have English on their menus, however, the English tended to be quite basic and often only described the main ingredient in a dish (e.g. chicken). My brother often ordered food, expecting one thing but receiving something completely different.

Problem number 5: the world is small. What this means is that my carefully planned Cantonese nut allergy translation sign wasn’t entirely effective when the waitress was from Nepal. This happened a few times. The best part was – strangely enough, when I handed my card to the non-Cantonese waiters or waitresses, they didn’t hand it back to me and respond with “Sorry I don’t speak Chinese”. Oh no. Rather, they looked at me with complete and total confusion, as if I had just asked them to read alien language, and with almost a bit of offence or horror, as if it was rude of me to expect that a person living in China would be able to speak Chinese. Obviously that’s just not a thing. I would definitely still recommend bringing a translation card, as it definitely still helped most of the time, but just be prepared. Luckily, where the waiter or waitress wasn’t able to speak Chinese, they always spoke English very well.

In all of my Eurotrip travels, I found Spain to be the most difficult in terms of finding traditional Spanish dishes that accommodated for all of my dietary requirements. But unlike the usual scenario for me, it wasn’t difficult due to nuts! What a nice change for me! In Valencia especially, I dedicated a lot of time (perhaps too much.. guilty as charged) on a food scavenger hunt [it probably would have been quicker to cook it myself].

The Spanish love their seafood. So for those allergic or unable to eat seafood, it can be harder to find typical Spanish dishes. Most paella, tapas and pintxos contain seafood in one form or another. BUT this isn’t to say you will be left “starvatious” (as we call it in my family) – there is an array of typical “American” seafood-free food. Somehow I ended up having 4 burgers in the space of 2 days in San Sebastian…Cultured? Tick. You may just miss out on experiencing some awesome authentic Spanish food.

However, I went to Barcelona, Valencia and San Sebastian, which of course are all coastal cities. I also went to Ibiza, but let’s be frank – who really cares about the food in Ibiza? I would love to hear from any readers who have been to some other Spanish cities, in particular, Madrid!

As mentioned in my previous post, I was determined to eat as much authentic, traditional Spanish food as possible. This determination allowed me to enjoy plenty of paella, after searching high and low for allergy-friendly paellas. However, my experience with tapas was not quite as successful.

Tapas are a variety of appetisers or snacks, served either hot or cold. The streets of Spain are lined with tapas bars, whose menus tend to have a selection of dozens of different tapas. The typical Spanish way is to order a collection of tapas, to be shared amongst a table, which will often comprise the entire meal. Yet while there is a huge variety of tapas served, due to an extensive display of dietary requirements, this Allergian was greatly limited and unfortunately, my level of experimentation was embarrassingly low.

Tapas bar in La Boqueria markets, Barcelona

Reading a list of 15 or so tapas on any given tapas menu, I was only able to order a couple, given the over-representation of fish, seafood and pork. Whilst all looked and sounded excitingly delicious [e.g. Cantabria salted anchovies, steamed mussels, ham croquettes, shrimp torpedos], I was mostly limited to the standard pan con tomate (bread with fresh tomato and oil), patatas bravas (potatoes and sauce, BUT stay tuned for a post about a sneaky nut addition here) and vegetables or salad. I guess that beggars can’t be choosers. Needless to say, for me, tapas didn’t ever comprise of my whole meal and I always needed to also enjoy a little bit extra – cue the paella search!

Our first tapas experience was actually the most exciting – we went to a restaurant on Las Ramblas in Barcelona where, in the excitement of having just landed in Spain, we ordered a set menu – 4 tapas to share, paella and a jug of sangria. Problematically for Allergians, some restaurants do not let you choose your tapas when ordering a set menu. But because of my allergies, the waiter arranged for my tapas to be nut and fish/seafood free. We received some mustard chicken wings, a chickpea salad, a Greek salad and some pork sausages. A good turnout, minus the pork sausages! Unfortunately, I didn’t spot chicken wings on a tapas menu for the rest of my time in Spain. While this may have been a successful tapas experience, I was not quite so lucky for the rest of my tapas searches.

Tapas on Las Ramblas, Barcelona

Luckily for my devoted boyfriend (who has had to tolerate my allergies and miss out on exciting food for the past 6 years), my inability to enjoy tapas did not stop him! Whilst tapas are often intended to be shared, the BF frequently does an outstanding job of enjoying the second half of my meal as well as his own when (and by this I mean always) I can’t finish my large meal. But on the other hand… luckily for ME (and I can’t say the same for the BF), I wasn’t “forced” by a waiter to eat a small fish – head, eyes, body and all – while the waiter filmed him on our GoPro. See photo proof below!

Paella. A huge rice dish; Spain’s national dish. It is usually served in a giant pan and is often made to share. It is delicious. The three most common types of paella are Valencian paella, seafood paella and mixed paella. Valencian paella usually contains chicken and rabbit, and mixed paella is usually a combination of seafood and a meat of sorts. Now my seafood allergy had knocked two options off the list – seafood paella and mixed paella. This left Valencian paella. But under no circumstances could I bring myself to eat a bunny. There went my last option. This left me in a bit of a pickle – desperate to eat paella, but often unable to eat paella. Unfortunately for my poor boyfriend, I was determined to walk from restaurant to restaurant, reading menu after menu, asking waiter after waiter, as our stomachs got hungrier and hungrier on a persistent hunt for a vegetarian paella or a chicken-only paella. They definitely existed, but were much less common than the other types [this varied in different cities – e.g. they were much more accessible in Barcelona and much less common in Valencia]. Yes ok, so I could have settled for the classic burger and chips, which was always an option. But I was in Spain and I was not going to give up that easily. Luckily, my search paid off because I did find and enjoy plenty of paellas… eventually. And they were worth the search!! Delicioso!

On a completely unrelated to dietary requirements note, I have two great paella tips that I learnt in Spain. Firstly, paella tastes MUCH better when eaten out of the pan rather than served onto a side plate. The rice gets stuck to the bottom and is crispy and full of flavour! As they say, when in Spain… Secondly, for those seeking an authentic paella, you should know that restaurants can serve one of two types of paellas – the pre-packaged type and the freshly made type. The pre-packaged paella takes much quicker to cook and you can often identify these paellas by the fact that the restaurant will have stock-standard pictures of paella on a sign outside. In contrast, the freshly made paellas can take up to 40 minutes or more to cook, are made to order, and are much, MUCH better. If you want real, authentic paella, this is the way to go. Also, as the paella is made to order, this means that if there is an ingredient that you cannot eat (e.g. rabbit), the restaurant may be able to leave it out!

Finally, the best paella I had in Spain [but remember I was limited in my options] was a chicken paella at Restaurante La Murciana on Malvarrosa beach in Valencia. Their paella is usually a chicken and rabbit paella, but they made a chicken-only one for me). One of their specialties (though I didn’t try it) is the ‘arroz negro’ – a black rice dish made with cuttlefish or squid. *** I’m waiting to brave the kitchen and try make some paella at home; nut-, seafood- and rabbit- free! ***

Luckily, my nut allergy was never a problem for me when ordering paella. I personally didn’t come across any paellas that contained nuts and generally paellas didn’t differ too much between restaurants. I am informed that the pre-packaged paellas that some restaurants serve do come with written ingredients, so the restaurant can easily check whether there are nuts inside. Alternatively, if the restaurant is making the paella fresh at the time of your ordering, they will be aware of what they are putting inside. This meant that as long as I checked with the waiter and made my severe allergy known to them, I always felt comfortable eating paellas!

Stay tuned for more posts about Spain – coming soon to An Allergian Abroad!